“Look after... him,” whispered Mira Leroux.

Her hand dropped and she closed her eyes again.  Cumberly bent forward suddenly, glancing back at M. Max who stood in a remote corner of the room watching this scene.

Big Ben commenced to chime the hour of midnight.  That frightful coincidence so startled Leroux that he looked up and almost rose from his chair in his agitation.  Indeed it startled Cumberly, also, but did not divert him from his purpose.

“It is now or never!” he whispered.

He took the seemingly lifeless hand in his own, and bending over Mira Leroux, spoke softly in her ear: 

“Mrs. Leroux,” he said, “there is something which we all would ask you to tell us; we ask it for a reason—­believe me.”

Throughout the latter part of this scene the big clock had been chiming the hour, and now was beating out the twelve strokes of midnight; had struck six of them and was about to strike the seventh.

Seven! boomed the clock.

Mira Leroux opened her eyes and looked up into the face of the physician.

Eight!...

“Who,” whispered Dr. Cumberly, “is he?”

Nine!

In the silence following the clock-stroke, Mira Leroux spoke almost inaudibly.

“You mean...  Mr. King?”

Ten!

“Yes, yes!  Did you ever see him?"...

Every head in the room was craned forward; every spectator tensed up to the highest ultimate point.

“Yes,” said Mira Leroux quite clearly; “I saw him, Dr. Cumberly...  He is"...

Eleven!

Mira Leroux moved her head and smiled at Helen Cumberly; then seemed to sink deeper into the downy billows of the bed.  Dr. Cumberly stood up very slowly, and turned, looking from face to face.

“It is finished,” he said—­“we shall never know!”

But Henry Leroux and Helen Cumberly, their glances meeting across the bed of the dead Mira, knew that for them it was not finished, but that Mr. King, the invisible, invisibly had linked them.

Twelve!...